December 16, 2013

In continuing to catch up with blog posts that should have been done long ago, I want to show you a bunch of things I’ve knit for gifts over the last several years that never made it to the blog! Many times, I’ve knit a thing, photographed it, meant to blog about it soon, and then just never gotten around to it… you know how it goes, life gets in the way. So here we go, alllll those gift knits that never got shown! Starting with the most recent, Pete’s xmas gift last year:

Pete wanted a warm hat with a bill, to keep the rain off his glasses. I didn’t want to design a hat with a bill, so I went pattern searching, and this design – Colorado Cadet / Newsboy Cap by Cheryl Andrews – seemed the best match for exactly what he wanted. I bought this Harris Tweed yarn in York last fall (at Ramshambles), with intentions to use the black skein for something for Pete, since he’s a big fan of the Harris Tweed brand. This hat ended up needing more than 1 skein worth, with the bill and folded-under brim adding yardage, so I added some of the other two skeins I’d bought for myself – a speckled brown kind of color for the crown, and a teal blue for the underside of the brim, and also for the braid to add a bit of extra interest there.

I think it turned out great, and Pete loves it (although Portland is rarely cold enough for him to wear it; he gets overheated really easily, unlike myself – I wear wool hats constantly all winter long!). The pattern makes the bill work without any plastic/cardboard/etc piece in there, which is cool. This was my first time with a few different techniques: a hemmed brim, a welt, and the herringbone braid. I made this hat a bit taller than the pattern, so it would cover his ears and be warmer.

Next up, my mom collects elephants, mostly of the small, hard variety, but I thought adding a large, soft version to her collection would be fun! So I used the pattern Garter Stitch Elephant by Phylis Tucker as a guideline, and bulky yarn (a few strands of worsted-ish held together), and made this weirdo wonky guy.

He looks like a perfectly normal stuffed elephant from certain angles…

…but then from other viewpoints, he looks like some kind of anteater/elephant hybrid thing. Oh well, he has personality. I think she named him, but I don’t remember what it was.

The other wonky toy I’ve made was a gift for Eloise, (ravelry creators) Jess‘s & Casey‘s little girl, when she was born.

I think the egg looks great, and then the bird hatches, and he’s a little funky looking. Personality?

Here’s a shot of the pieces before sewing them together:

Another one from far back, 3 years ago to be exact, I made this scarf for my mom for a xmas present. The pattern is Spitcurl Scarf by Staceyjoy Elkin; it’s one of those patterns I saw and just wanted to make to find out how it’s made.

Another mom gift, this one was for Pete’s mom for xmas 4 years ago. We did it as a joint gift – Pete picked the pattern (Kerry by Rodger Murry, no longer available) and the yarn (Malabrigo Twist, yumm) – and I knit the hat.

This was my first time knitting with Twist and it was love at first stitch.

Lastly in the other-people’s-patterns category, I knit this scarf for Pete back in 2008 – Counterpoint Scarf by Jennifer Crawford, in Alpaca with a Twist Highlander. It was my first (and only) time doing illusion knitting, and I love it; I’ve always planned to revisit the illusion concept someday in my own designs… Maybe 2014 will be the year for that, we’ll see!

I’ve also knit a few gifts from my own patterns that never got blogged, so here are those. First, a pair of Either/Or mitts for my brother Matt:

I used a striping pattern for these that’s different from all six of my pattern sample mitts, and I love how it looks! Three colors in blocks, in the short fingerless mitts version of the pattern:

They are man-sized, modeled by Pete, in a machine-washable yarn (Lion Brand Wool-Ease) so Matt can wash them easily.

I knit this picture frame for my dad using my Quick Knits Cabled Frame pattern, but making each section longer for a larger frame. It’s shown here with a placeholder picture (a page of a magazine). It’s backed with layers of cardboard so the photo can slide in and out easily.

Lastly, I first started working on the Coloring Book designs in early 2012, to figure out what yarns I needed and stuff; when I decided to make a cowl for Pete’s mom last year out of an assortment of yarns bought throughout ourUK/Ireland trip, I thought the draft version of what would become the Color by Number pattern would be a perfect fit.

So, this is sort of a Color by Number custom cowl, but it’s way before the actual pattern was finalized, and there are lots of improvised bits – mainly, the cabled panel up the one side, and the scattered boxes with cables and twisted stitch patterns inside.

I’m pretty happy with how it turned out! Although I wish I’d given it wood buttons instead of plastic. Oh well. It worked nicely to throw in some stitch patterns in some of the boxes, so feel free to use that idea with your own Color by Number projects if you like it!

Okay that was a long post. Better to group together all these old knits into one giant post than to never blog about them at all, right? I have a couple other completely different gift-themed blog posts coming up this week. Next will be a tutorial, and then I’ll be giving a gift to you for the holidays :)